White Supremacist Looks to Turn North Dakota Town into a Neo-Nazi Haven

The town of Leith, North Dakota has a population of only 19 people. And there, 61-year old white supremacist leader Paul Craig Cobb has undergone a plan to turn the small town into a neo-Nazi “stronghold,” The Raw Story reports.

Cobb has been purchasing properties with dilapidated housing in the town where “there is only one storefront business for miles.” Then he sells or rents out the properties to other racists for next to nothing in price, on one account he sold a lot for only $1. In order for the tenant to maintain residence, some parameters of the lot agreement would be to “Always (24 hrs. a day) fly at least one racialist banner,” and “import more responsible radical hard core WN [White Nationalists].”

He announced his plan to buy up land in Leith to sterilize it with his message of hate in the Vanguard News Network forum, a racist, white-power website, last June. Cobb has been buying the lots for as low as $200, he says, which he would resell or give as a gift to supporters of his cause.

As if that wasn’t extreme enough, in order to “lock up recalcitrant journalists and lefty commies who violate the codes or peace of the community,” Cobb erected a prison made of concrete.

Leith has only one black resident and he, along with his wife, who is white, have become increasingly anxious. Bobby and Sherrill Harper “were vilified” by stormfront.org, a white-supremacist website, as it posted that “a … race-mixing white woman like her has no place in a White nation.” But the Harpers remain steadfast and refuse to be moved by Cobb and his efforts. Mr. Harper said that “he can’t take away the community. People will resist this. My best guess is that it will fall apart as a result of being exposed.”

Cobb has a criminal history with his rhetoric of hate and racial ignorance. A dual-citizen of America and Canada, he was arrested in Canada in 2010 “on federal charges of willful promotion of hatred.”

Josh is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. Follow him on Twitter @dnJdeli.